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What GAO Found

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has partially established elements of key practices for effective information technology (IT) governance, as identified by GAO's IT investment management guide. However, several shortcomings remain:

Investment boards, policies, and procedures were not fully established: HUD chartered four review boards to manage the department's IT investments; however, the executive-level board, which is to be responsible for overall definition and implementation of the investment management process, has never met. Instead, the department's Deputy Secretary makes decisions about which investments to fund. The lack of an operational executive-level board has affected HUD's other active investment boards, which are operating without criteria the executive-level board was to have established for evaluating proposed investments. In addition, HUD has not yet developed all of the policies that it has identified as needed to support its IT management framework. Specifically, the department has not set a schedule for developing policies for IT investment performance, privacy, and risk management. Office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) officials explained that operating without an executive-level board represents the preferred investment management approach of HUD's Secretary and Deputy Secretary.

Process for selecting investments lacks key elements: HUD has developed elements of a process for selecting investments based on defined criteria; however, it has not fully defined and implemented practices for identifying, evaluating, and prioritizing proposed IT projects for funding, as recommended by GAO's IT investment management guide. CIO officials acknowledged that they have not yet fully developed a standard and well-documented process and attributed weaknesses to a variety of factors, including changes in leadership, priorities, and approaches.

Process for overseeing investments has not been fully developed: The department has not consistently compared the performance of projects to pre-defined expectations, established thresholds to trigger remedial action for underperforming investments, or reviewed projects after implementation to compare actual investment results with decision makers' expectations. These weaknesses were attributed by CIO officials to, among other things, the lack of a consistent, enterprise-wide way to collect and compare actual data with estimates.

Until effective governance practices are institutionalized, there is risk that HUD's investments in IT may not reflect department-wide goals and priorities or effectively support the department's mission.

While HUD has reported governance-related cost savings and operational efficiencies, the data to support such reports were not always accurate, consistent, or substantiated. This is due, in part, to the lack of a department-wide approach, as called for in Office of Management and Budget guidance, to identify and collect cost-savings information. Thus, it is unclear to what extent HUD has realized savings or operational efficiencies from its IT governance.

Why GAO Did This Study

HUD relies on IT to deliver services and manage programs in support of its mission of strengthening communities and ensuring access to affordable housing. However, the department has experienced shortcomings in its IT management capability and limitations in the systems supporting its mission.

A Senate report accompanying HUD's fiscal year 2012 appropriation mandated GAO to evaluate, among other things, the department's institutionalization of IT governance. In response, GAO reported on HUD's IT project management in June 2013.

GAO's objectives for this second review were to determine (1) the extent to which HUD implemented key IT governance practices, including effective cost estimation, and (2) what, if any, cost savings or operational efficiencies HUD has reported achieving as a result of its IT governance practices. To accomplish this, GAO compared HUD's approach to IT governance with best practices and the department's policies and procedures. GAO also analyzed reported cost savings and operational efficiencies, along with any available supporting documentation.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that HUD ensure that its investment review boards operate as intended and complete and update associated policies; fully establish processes including key elements for selecting and overseeing investments; and fully establish a process for identifying, collecting, and reporting data about cost savings and efficiencies. HUD agreed with GAO's recommendations.

For more information, contact Valerie C. Melvin at (202) 512-6304 or melvinv@gao.gov.

Recommendations for Executive Action

Status: Open

Comments: As of April 2017, HUD had not provided information demonstrating that the department has addressed this recommendation. HUD reported that it established a new executive-level investment review board (i.e. the Executive Operations Committee) that replaced the board discussed in our report. However, as of April 2017, the department had not yet documented criteria the Committee had established for use by other boards or provided evidence of how this new committee would distribute decisions made to appropriate stakeholders.

Recommendation: To ensure that HUD fully implements and sustains effective IT governance practices, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development should direct the Deputy Secretary and the department's Chief Information Officer to place a high priority and ensure that the executive-level investment review board meets as outlined in its charter, documents criteria for use by the other boards, and distributes its decisions to appropriate stakeholders.

Agency Affected: Department of Housing and Urban Development

Status: Open

Comments: As of April 2017, the department had taken steps to address this recommendation. In 2015, HUD updated its Project Planning and Management policy and confirmed that the remaining policies to be developed were the IT Risk Policy and the IT Performance Management Policy. HUD also reported that the department planned to revise additional existing policies, including the IT Management Framework Policy, IT Capital Management Policy, IT Project Planning & Management Policy, IT Governance Policy, and IT Strategic Planning Policy. As of April 2017, the department had finalized a Risk Policy but reported it was still working on additional policy updates anticipated to be finalized during 2017.

Recommendation: To ensure that HUD fully implements and sustains effective IT governance practices, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development should direct the Deputy Secretary and the department's Chief Information Officer to place a high priority and fully establish and maintain a complete set of governance policies, establish time frames for establishing policies planned but not yet developed, and update key governance documents to reflect changes made to established practices.

Agency Affected: Department of Housing and Urban Development

Status: Open

Comments: As of April 2017, HUD had not provided information demonstrating that the department has addressed this recommendation. In 2015, HUD reported that it had begun using a new tool to support its IT selection process. As of April 2017, the department had reported on improvements to its investment process but had not yet provided evidence of specific actions or plans aimed at ensuring the five IT selection processes highlighted in this recommendation would be addressed.

Recommendation: To ensure that HUD fully implements and sustains effective IT governance practices, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development should direct the Deputy Secretary and the department's Chief Information Officer to place a high priority and fully establish an IT investment selection process that includes (1) articulating how reviews of project proposals are to be conducted; (2) planning how data (including cost estimates) are to be developed and verified and validated; (3) establishing criteria for how cost, schedule, and project risk are to be analyzed; (4) developing procedures for how proposed projects are to be compared to one another in terms of investment size (cost), project longevity (schedule), technical difficulty, project risk, and cost-benefit analysis; and (5) ensuring that final selection decisions made by senior decision makers and governance boards are supported by analysis, consider predefined quantitative measures, and are consistently documented.

Agency Affected: Department of Housing and Urban Development

Status: Open

Comments: As of April 2017, the department had taken steps to address this recommendation. Specifically, in April 2016, HUD provided evidence of actions taken toward developing new processes for investment oversight practices. Specifically, the department created processes for conducting project health assessments and weekly project management meetings intended to monitor, among other things, actual performance against expected outcomes, and to establish thresholds for triggering remedial actions or elevating projects for additional review. As of April 2017, the department had not provided evidence that these new processes were fully established and institutionalized.

Recommendation: To ensure that HUD fully implements and sustains effective IT governance practices, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development should direct the Deputy Secretary and the department's Chief Information Officer to place a high priority and fully establish a well-defined process that incorporates key practices for overseeing investments, including (1) monitoring actual project performance against expected outcomes for project cost, schedule, benefit, and risk; (2) establishing and documenting cost-, schedule-, and performance-based thresholds for triggering remedial actions or elevating project review to higher-level investment boards; and (3) conducting post-implementation reviews to evaluate results of projects after they are completed.

Agency Affected: Department of Housing and Urban Development

Status: Open

Priority recommendation

Comments: As of April 2017, the department had taken steps to address this recommendation. Specifically, in April 2016, HUD provided examples of cost savings that the department had identified by "scrubbing" existing contracts during the fiscal year 2015 budget formulation process, along with copies of a template that it designed and used to help identify such savings. As of April 2017, the department had not yet provided evidence that it had formally established policies and procedures or taken other actions to institutionalize a process for identifying and providing an enterprise-wide view of IT-related cost savings and operational efficiencies.

Recommendation: To establish an enterprise-wide view of cost savings and operational efficiencies generated by investments and governance processes, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development should direct the Deputy Secretary and Chief Information Officer to place a higher priority on identifying governance-related cost savings and efficiencies and establish and institutionalize a process for identifying and tracking comprehensive, high-quality data on savings and efficiencies resulting from IT investments and the IT governance process.